


Loss

by ConflictingOpinions



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study?, Gen, Sam-Centric, Warning: brief suicidal ideation, sad I guess, very brief though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConflictingOpinions/pseuds/ConflictingOpinions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam keeps things from the people that he has lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! :) Please enjoy and forgive my undoubtedly numerous mistakes (spelling, grammatical, timeline, etc).

Sam was eight, and he didn't have a mom. He had stories, and a few faded, beat-up pictures, but not the real thing. But he had Dean, and Dean was kinda like a mom and a dad and a brother all at once, so that made it okay most of the time.

But sometimes even Dean wasn't enough.

Sometimes he wanted, _needed_ that lady from the stories and the pictures. The one with blonde hair and freckles like Dean, and dimples like him. The one who baked pie and sang Hey Jude. But he couldn't have her, and he couldn't ask about her. Dad didn't like it very much when Sam brought up Mom. That only made the wanting worse.

Mary Winchester made Sam believe in heaven and angels. Because the stories and pictures made her seem so  _perfect_ , and if someone as perfect as she must have been could die, they should at least go somewhere nice afterward.

He took out one of the pictures of Mom whenever he felt sad and Dean couldn't help.

~o0o~

Sam was eighteen, and he had lost the rest of his family. He hadn't  _wanted_ to, but Dad hadn't seemed too keen on giving him any say in the matter. Apparently wanting to get an education and not kill monsters day in and day out was a valid reason to be disowned.

He spent three days being angry before he broke down sobbing in his motel room.  _His_ , not  _their_ , because he'd left and he couldn't come back but he was so sad and so lonely and Dean wasn't there to make some stupid joke to cheer him up. He made himself sick crying. The nasty taste in the back of his throat stayed for hours even after he brushed his teeth.

He didn't have a picture of Mom anymore. He hadn't been able to sneak one out of Dad's journal on his way out. But he had managed to swipe one of Dean's old sweatshirts. It barely covered his stomach, and hung off of his skinny frame, and there were thin patches and tiny holes all over it, and it wasn't his brother, but it would do. Sam slept in that sweatshirt every night, even after it no longer smelled like Dean.

When he met Jess, the sweatshirt started spending more and more time in the drawer than on him. When they moved in together, it was nearly forgotten. Jess made him happy.

~o0o~

And then Sam was twenty-two and Jess was dead. Dead. She'd died on his ceiling. Burned. Just like his mother. Sam spent three days crying before he started being angry as well as sad. Dean didn't ask Sam why he was wearing an old sweatshirt of his that had gone missing years ago. He didn't ask why Sam kept looking at the pictures of Mom.

Sam prayed even more, believed in heaven and angels and God even more fervently than before, because Jess was the closest to perfect as anyone could be, so she  _had_ to go somewhere deserving of her now that she was... gone.

He had found a nearly-full bottle of Jess' perfume tucked into one of the pockets of his duffel bag a few weeks later. It was her favorite perfume, and she'd thought she had lost it when they went to her parents' house for Christmas. He had got her another and wrapped it up and put it in her stocking because he liked how it smelled on her even more than she did.

He couldn't manage a smile at the irony.

Sam took to putting a little on Dean's ratty old sweatshirt when he felt bad.

Dean didn't ask.

~o0o~

Sam didn't need to keep anything from Dad when he died. The Impala, the journal, their lives; they were all memories of their father that they'd carry with them whether they wanted to or not.

~o0o~

Sam let the scratches from Madison's claws stay as long as they could.

He was a little disappointed when they didn't scar.

~o0o~

Sam was twenty-four when Dean died. He buried his brother without his necklace and wore it himself. He drove the Impala and went off the grid. Dean had died for him. It was his fault. Seemed like everything was his fault at this point. He cried for a long time.

He did what he always did on bad days for two weeks, but with a lot more drinking. He thought more than once about just offing himself before he thought how pissed Dean would be if he did. Suicides went to Hell, after all, and Dean would be sure to notice. Not having his big brother there to drag him out of his stupor when he'd been moping for too long made all the difference.

That difference made him play along with Ruby and her little game.

~o0o~

He kept Ruby's knife. Because even though she was a lying, manipulative bitch who had tricked him into ending the world, he was the idiot who trusted her. Who fell in love with her.

~o0o~

There wasn't a single night during the apocalypse that Sam didn't wear Dean's sweatshirt and Jess' perfume while staring at pictures of Mom. 

Dean was too busy being angry at him to ask. 

Lucifer wouldn't shut the hell up about it.

~o0o~

When Ellen and Jo died, there'd been nothing left to keep.

~o0o~

In the Cage, Sam tried to forget all of those things just so the devil wouldn't use them against him.

~o0o~

When Cas betrayed them and broke Sam's wall, Sam didn't have time to be angry. Castiel just walked right into a lake and died. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, the False God, his  _friend_ , died.

He didn't even get a chance to yell at him for what he'd done. Hadn't even gotten to hear him apologize like Sam knew he would've.

He convinced Dean to hang on to Cas' coat far longer than his brother would've liked to. He didn't look at it or hold it or anything like he did with the other things he kept. That just didn't seem right. But he knew, somewhere deep in his bones that were far older than they should have been, that they needed to keep that ratty old trench coat. 

That didn't mean that he didn't cry at night about yet another loved one he'd lost.

~o0o~

And then Sam was two hundred and twenty-eight, and Bobby was dead, too. He'd called John Dad, but he'd been a  _father_ . Bobby was a  _dad_ , and he'd been a damn good one. But they'd lost him as well, and they had nobody left to lean on.

Sam knew it was a bad idea, but he kept Bobby's hat. When Lucifer's voice got too loud, he added twisting the cap between his fingers to his usual bad-day ritual. But it wasn't the same as being called an idjit and being wrapped up in a bear hug.

When they found out Bobby was a ghost, Sam was glad it was only the flask he'd been attached to. He'd hated that thing anyway.

~o0o~

When Dean and Castiel got sucked into Purgatory, Sam thought they were dead. He lost touch. He let Kevin slip away. He fell off the grid again. He was alone. His bad-day ritual didn't help very much. He was almost out of Jess' perfume, and it was a miracle he could even get Dean's old sweatshirt on anymore.

That night on the bridge, he kept thinking how easy it would be to just swerve right off of it. Hey, he was part monster, right? Maybe he'd wind up in Purgatory and find his brother and his best friend. Instead he just hit a dog.

~o0o~

Sam didn't keep anything from Amelia. He'd taken enough from her already.

~o0o~

When Kevin died, Sam screamed. He screamed and cried and beat his fists against the walls he had been confined to. Those weren't his hands, but they  _were_ , and that made it a hundred times worse. It didn't stop Kevin's body from slumping down to the floor with burnt-out eye sockets. 

He was just a kid.

Sam didn't have access to the things he needed most on bad days anymore.

~o0o~

And then Dean died again. And he came back a demon before Sam could even begin mourning.

Wasn't like he had anything of his bad-day ritual left except for the pictures of Mom and Bobby's cap.

~o0o~

Sam had stopped counting just how ancient he was by the time Charlie died. Even if he was still counting, none of it would have mattered when he found her sitting in a tub full of her own blood and it was all his fault. Again.

Sam couldn't keep anything of hers for a new bad-day ritual. Dean was asking too many questions.

~o0o~

And then Sam was sitting next to Dean in the Impala, surrounded by the Darkness, wondering who he was going to lose next.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it! Please leave comments and kudos, but especially comments.


End file.
